A while back, I posted one of Steve Jobs’ many letters to himself about not creating the technology he’s worked with.
I found this crazy video of someone zooming into a silicon die from an iPhone, and I think it perfectly sums up that line. Even if I write assembly, I am still thousands of layers above what the most basic unit of computing is, and that gives me more appreciation for the technology I work with.
Nothing much, I just wanted to show off my 3D-printed headphone stand. STL was from Josh-3d. Filaments were Matte Black and Copper. M4 screw set was from Amazon.
A while back, Cognition Labs posted about Devin, the first AI software engineer. I was highly skeptical not of its capabilities, but of the hype around it and LLMs in general. It’s not that I don’t think they’re powerful, or that I don’t believe in their potential, and don’t see the rate of progress. I know non-coders have successfully been using LLMs to build apps.
I’ve used Copilot during its beta, I frequently use ChatGPT for ideation and validation, but I would never trust code written by an LLM. I always defer to typing code myself (a personal principle - even before these language models existed and we only have SO and copy-paste!).
Yesterday, I had first hand taste of an actual product doing AI code reviews and suggestions, and is a prime example of my point. It is a very simple mistake, and is code that has been written billions of times in the past, is part of the language construct, and yet, the AI got it horribly wrong. The annoying thing is this is supposed to check your work! Similar tools would do this automatically - imagine if a human committed slop to your repo?!
After saying goodbye to using my Windows/WSL desktop as my primary work machine for now, I set out to build my Mac experience using the same gear and then some.
First, I ordered an Anker USB-C hub (the one that attaches to the side of the Mac taking up two ports!), and I ordered a UGREEN DP KVM dock. I also ordered an extra mouse.
Then, I 3D-printed this parametric vertical laptop stand for the Macbook Pro, where I can permanently dock my machine.
Third, the software stack. I use the following:
I just learned that we aren’t allowed to use our personal devices for work, so I guess putting in my stats at the sidebar won’t be as impressive! I had gotten used to my setup, and now, I need to muscle-memorize using the Mac as my primary development station. I guess it’s slightly a good thing that I had just used my home office budget to do a few upgrades.
I had just gotten a UGREEN 8K KVM so I can connect my Mac to the primary monitor. I still need a second dual-screen KVM, or and probably a dock, so I can fully transition to the triple monitor setup. I also got myself a new MX Master 3S so I can control my desktop separately from the Mac - being able to simultaneously switch videos or playlists while working!